Fission track analysis is a traditional method for locating fissionable material mixed with large amounts of inert material. In a conventional method of fission track analysis, a sample, e.g. a micron size sample mass, may be placed on a plastic or mica detector material and exposed to a neutron flux from a nuclear reactor. Neutron absorption of fissionable material causes fission reactions that produce fission products, in particular energetic heavy ions, that may penetrate into the detector material. The penetration of the fission products into the detector material may cause an ionization trail of damaged material, or a latent fission track.
The fission tracks may be enlarged by chemical etching to produce a visible defect which can be imaged using an optical microscope. The appearance of fission tacks near fissionable material may be used to distinguish fissionable material from inert material, which do not produce such tracks. Further, fission tacks identified by microscopic examination may be subjectively compared to known fission track patterns to determine a likely isotope and/or enrichment of the sample mass.
Additionally or alternatively, sample masses may undergo elemental or isotopic analysis, such as by mass spectrometry. These analyses may require scarce, highly sensitive, and/or highly expensive equipment.
This process may require a considerable amount of time to determine the isotopes and enrichment level thereof within the samples, in some instances twenty days or more. Additionally, this method requires large non-transportable or very expensive equipment, such as a nuclear reactor and/or a mass spectrometer. The scarcity of the equipment and distances from sample points may cause increased cost of analysis and require substantial sample transit time.